Superfast Cymru - Job Done?

According to the BBC Story Here The "Superfast Cymru" project will be completed by the end of this month. I can think of several locations locally where FTTP works appear to be only partially complete.

I'm wondering if they are being a little hasty in declaring "job done" when more than one Village locally has partial completion with poles erected and fibre ducts put in place but no connections made - along with areas like that served by Cabinet 4 on Pembroke exchange which is pretty much surrounded by FTTC but has no VDSL due to the distance from the PCP that serves it, again some new poles have arrived but have sat in place for more than 6 months with no further progress.

I'm sure these are not the only examples - I feel sure the situation is being fudged and that in reality, completion is still some way off.

In reply to a post by warweezil:

I'm wondering if they are being a little hasty in declaring "job done" when more than one Village locally has partial completion with poles erected and fibre ducts put in place but no connections made

...

I'm sure these are not the only examples - I feel sure the situation is being fudged and that in reality, completion is still some way off.

Nope its like that in London as well, we have all the FTTP hardware installed hand have had it since 2011 - 2012 and currently only one home on our hardware can get it, and BT / Openreach says the hardware isn't live, however it is due to that one home has it and is in fact using FTTP.

The way I see it BT takes the tax payers money to install fibre and just refuses to allow the homes on that said hardware order fibre, and when said people provide proof that its all completed and is live, BT / Openreach just stop responding.

Paul

BT takes the tax payers money to install fibre

Not that that is true in your case since no BDUK funding was involved, nevertheless a most unsatisfactory state of affairs all round.

The website superfast-cymru.com/where-and-when

now takes you to http://gov.wales/topics/science-and-technology/digit... and you can check availability by clicking "Step 2 > Check Availability" on the left hand side.


My very small exchange area (Rhos) has had no upgrades yet and is delayed for up to 12 months (June 2017) so NOT JOB DONE.

I think they are referring to having 96% of wales connected to FTTC/P not 100%

So you and others are gonna be in that 4%. Someone has to be!

I hoped my post would be pretty clear that the areas I referred to are known to be in the plan, some works have been executed under this funding but not completed. There is no commercial roll out here - Across Pembrokeshire any roll out is a BDUK project. I believe the nearest Commercial roll out is Llanelli, some 50 miles away.

Waterston is on the plan, The infrastructure works that have been carried out are easily visible - and incomplete. Waterston residents and businesses - there are a couple of Business parks there all very frustrated at being on (on a good day) Circa1Mbps connections - have been told that "Superfast is coming" to them. I think that Rhos may be (I'm sure I read somewhere that it was confirmed to be on the plan) but I have no certain knowledge about that exchange.

Pembroke PCP4 was confirmed (by Mr S among others I seem to recall) back last year as awaiting FTTP. This is probably due to the fact that despite being on the closest side of town to the exchange at Pembroke Dock, due to a lack of capacity at the time - the development (late 60s) was connected to a quite distant PCP which I believe is sited between the 2 towns at the junction of Ferry Lane/Pembroke Road/Buttermilk Close/ Bush Hill.

New posts have appeared with a new chamber constructed at the base of the one at the bottom of Bush Hill. the same coils of conduit/cable are visible at the top of the posts that we see in Waterston.

If they are now considered to be "in the 4%" then money has been wasted on erecting unused infrastructure - AND people misled.

I note that this morning - the Superfarce line checker is not working, the whole Superfast Cymru web presence has been a waste of money seeming to be nothing more than a channel for rehashing PR Puff. There has never been much hard information there. I wonder how many people the money wasted on that could have connected?

Edited by deleted (Mon 27-Jun-16 12:17:04)

If they are now considered to be "in the 4%" then money has been wasted on erecting unused infrastructure - AND people misled

That would depend if there was any underspend and/or claw back to go beyond the original target

Surely claw back and under-spend wouldn't relate to works scheduled and started a year ago? Waterston is a long delayed phase due to many collapsed ducts -ironically this may be the result of the business parks. PCP4 was discussed here a long time ago where I believe MR Saffron checked and found that it was planned to be an FTTP area within the FTTC rollout that was completing at the time. This would suggest it was planned and budgeted in the program at the time, not to be a later addition.

Money has been spent, hardware is in place and standing idle. If this publicly funded work has been wasted and the public misled then heads need to roll.

Could just have moved on with extra cabs which are easier to get the coverage figures ,then come back to complete the more difficult/ slower to build FTTP later. At the end if the day, if they hit the coverage target and have money left for another 1 or 2% it doesn't matter where the coverage is, it's just a numbers game.
AIUI, no payment is made on a scheme until it is complete.

Edited by deleted (Mon 27-Jun-16 13:15:46)

I like many am frustrated by the opaque nature of this spend. Little information has been provided, which has then changed without any accountability.

In my locality fibre conduit is hanging in coils from new poles that were set last summer. In recent months there have been lots of roadworks and miles of new ducting dug to reach outlying villages but I don't think they've been attached back to the exchange.

It seems as though the the superfast-cymru website has just had a global reset applied with "FTTP likely June 2017" thrown on there as a place holder. Similar wholescale changes have been applied to previous availability checkers going right back to the days of 21CN updates for ADSL.

It would be nice to think that the over-provision of unconnected infrastructure will just be there "ready and waiting", but the reality is more likely to be that we've paid for an incomplete build and will have to pay again in months/years/decades to re-think, re-plan, re-schedule, likely scrap the half-complete schemes and re-pay to finish off. Unless BT & their subcontractors are *really* busy this week.